Evaluation of AESO’s market design

Brattle evaluated the long-term sustainability of the Alberta Electric System Operator’s (AESO) energy-only market with respect to upcoming environmental and economic challenges. These challenges include the upcoming Canadian federal coal retirement mandate, worsening economics for coal generators, high load growth, and the expiration of PPAs on most of the generation fleet. The analysis included production cost simulations of the Alberta system under a variety of future scenarios. In 2013 we provided study updates to account for recent changes to policy and economic conditions.